Lexus recently teamed up with What Car? to provide the magazine’s readers an advanced look at the CT 200h — here’s what they had to say:

Opinions seem to vary wildly, but the balance between like & dislikes seemed fairly even — one thing that stuck out to me was how comfortable the interior looks with someone sitting inside:

At the end of the video, the presenter mentions that “prices haven’t been officially announced, but we expect [the CT 200h] to cost between £22,000 & £26,000” — let’s do a little bit of math to see what that might mean for the US price:

A LS 600hL in the UK is £73,625 before tax, or $114,797USD converted directly. An equivalent LS 600hL in the USA comes in at $114,620USD — a very minor difference of $177, or 0.1%.

A GS 450h in the UK is £35,757 before tax, or $55,752USD. An equivalent GS 450h in the USA comes in at $59,730USD — meaning that the US GS is $3,978 more expensive by 7.7%.

Assuming the price quoted by What Car? is before VAT, and that we take the average of the LSh/GSh price difference (which equals 3.9% more expensive in the US) — the CT 200h could start at $35,639 in the USA, with the fully loaded model coming in at $42,120.

(Hardly an exact science, but it’s always fun to speculate.)

Update: Just been informed that UK prices always include VAT — which throws my entire speculative price out the window. Let’s try again:

A LS 600hL in the UK is £86,510, or $134,886USD converted directly. An equivalent LS 600hL in the USA comes in at $114,620USD — a difference of $20,266, or 17.6%.

A GS 450h in the UK is £42,015, or $65,616. An equivalent GS 450h in the USA comes in at $59,730USD — a difference of $5,886, or 9.8%.

If we take the average of the LSh/GSh price difference (which translates to an average of 13.7% less expensive in the US), the CT 200h could start at $29,650 in the USA, with the fully loaded model coming in at $35,041.